Creative process to make conceptual illustrations.

I’m tired after a long day working at my studio, my two kids are finally sleeping and my wife couldn’t stand awake while we were watching some tv on the couch. Then I grab my sketch book or the iPad pro and I start to dedicate some time to reflection, trying to find the other side of the reality and mix concepts to make a joke or a thought.
Maybe I will repeat to this process tomorrow, early in the morning with a good Costa Rican coffee, or probably on Sunday while my mother-in-law will be playing with my kids.

My doodles usually are lame, the project of a sketch ends as soon as I get a concept, an idea. I preffer to work making a final illustration rather than make a great doodle, if I take my pencils and I want to do something beautiful I always do a finished illustration ready to frame. So, while I’m doodling I’m thinking more than drawing mechanically like I do everyday.

This set of conceptual illustrations started with a fast sketch or directly drawign on Adobe Illustrator. Some of them has been made with and iPad pro using Procreate and ArtRage. Besides that, the thinking process is always in active mode, whether if I’m watching a movie or watching life go by on a bus.

It’s fascinating to work at my studio everyday with clients who love my style and also to start something new, building with Octavio Rodríguez an animation studio, Milà Animation, that we hope to be a reference soon making explainer videos and short animated films. Create beautiful things is our profession and our passion as well, and we must create different things, learn new techniques, save some time to think and, thanks to this, our work will grow and get richer.

These illustrations attempt to break free of conventional dynamics so as to broaden your horizons a bit, as opposed to just looking for solutions and finding results.
We’ll speak soon.

Alejandro Milà

Having been a lover of the ninth art since time immemorial, as a child I took my Superman and Tintin comics which my mother bought me wherever I went. At the age of 18 I began taking classes in illustration and design at Joso Comics School (Barcelona), which I combined with my history studies at the University of Barcelona because my father didn’t think I would make a dime off of drawings. I continued my studies at the art school with an inextinguishable passion, though I had to abandon my studies at the university to the great chagrin of my father, and myself, as well.

In 2009 I met Vanessa, the love of my life, who in 2011 convinced me to go to her beautiful home country of Costa Rica to live there for a while since as an architect in Barcelona during the crisis, opportunities were getting scarcer and scarcer. The experience couldn’t have been better, and in these last 7 years in addition to making new friends and going on excursions as well as trips to and from my own native land, we’ve had two incredible children, Diego and Ignasi.

Since 2006, as a bona fide professional, I’ve been progressing little by little but never ceasing to move forward. I’ve gone from working as a freelance designer and illustrator to setting up one studio for illustration and another for animation, putting our style and positive energy into a ton of projects for ad agencies, communication companies, publishing houses, and magazines. We’re very grateful to all the people who are behind the many large and small companies that have decided to go with us, companies and brands like Orange, Jotabequ GREY, Oxford University, Difusión ELE, Maison de Langues, Cambridge University Press, Sweetrush, La Nación, and many more.

I’m interested in a million different things, and without exception they always show up in my work.